


And This is How it Hurts

by Fictionista654



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: #deep, Angst, Arthur Is There, Heavy Angst, Same old, What else do I write, lots of references to non-con, maybe it's bc they're bathrooms, merlin is depressed, ok see u later, somehow i wrote another fic where merlin wakes up in a bathroom, they're so depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 07:49:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19884148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictionista654/pseuds/Fictionista654
Summary: Here’s the thing: Merlin is complacent. Merlin lets things happen to him. He always. Fucking. Lets things happen. He lies back and thinks of England, he says yes when he means no, he can’t remember the last time he wanted to be here.Why does he do this? he wonders. Why does he let them tug him down to the ground, why does he let them shove their tongues in his mouth, why does he let them take his body from him? He’s smart, he has money in the bank, he has his own flat, he has his own life, and he can’t stop them from taking and taking and taking.





	And This is How it Hurts

Here is what Merlin is, and here is what he is not: he is alive, he is not alive, he is dead, he is not dead, he is awake, he is asleep, he is lying on the bottom of his shower staring up at the sparkling water and remembering how it felt—no, don’t think about it don’t—when— _shut up_ —when— _fuck_.

The water gets in his mouth and in his eyes and he tries to forget the asphalt digging into his knees, and he tries to forget how he couldn’t breathe, and he tries to shove his thoughts through a blender, but they don’t go anywhere, and he’s drowning in his own shower.

Here’s the thing: Merlin is complacent. Merlin lets things happen to him. He always. Fucking. Lets things happen. He lies back and thinks of England, he says yes when he means no, he can’t remember the last time he wanted to be here.

Why does he do this? he wonders. Why does he let them tug him down to the ground, why does he let them shove their tongues in his mouth, why does he let them take his body from him? He’s smart, he has money in the bank, he has his own flat, he has his own life, and he can’t stop them from taking and taking and taking.

He’s like a rubber doll, he thinks. A rubber doll that can’t move and doesn’t care and doesn’t want to be there and is there anyway and can’t go and can’t stay, not in his mind, not sane, not…

He can’t remember what he was trying to think, and, Jesus, the water, the water, the water, it’s drowning him, and he reaches up and yanks off the tap and shivers on the porcelain and hates himself and wonders why he is alive.

Maybe he isn’t. Maybe he is dead. But the vomit in the bin and blood on the wall and the wrinkles in his bed tell him that he’s here, he’s doing something, he’s making an impact, even if it’s just moving a couch cushion from one side of the couch to the other.

His phone rings. It is very far away, all the way down his room, and he thinks it is probably Arthur, wanting to know if he made it home safe.

Made it home safe.

And he was so close, too. Just a few blocks away when that hand grabbed his wrist, just a few blocks away when he turned off his mind, and fucking shit, why is he like this? No one hurt him when he was a child, and he wasn’t depressed, at least not most of the time, and he still couldn’t say no. There is something wrong with him, he thinks. Truly, deeply wrong.

He curls up on his side and listened to his breathing and hears the phone ring again and wonders if he is going to answer it. As if he weren't here anymore.

Sometimes he starts it, and that’s even worse. Sometimes he’ll get as drunk as he can and ask someone if they want X or Y or Z, and nine times out of 10 it’s, _Yes, let’s._ And then he actually has to do it.

Sometimes he doesn’t move at all. He doesn’t think people should touch him if he’s not moving at all, but he’s learned that there are some very fucked up people in the world, who will move your limbs as if they own them. He presses his legs together because he can no longer sleep with them apart and curls his arms around his naked body and falls asleep with his skull pressed uncomfortably against the hard bathtub floor.

And then there is someone in the flat. He knows because he heard a key in the lock, and he can’t think of who might have the keys, and now the door is opening and now it is closing, and it’s probably burglars, and he’ll just lie here and let them take what they want because isn’t that what he’s good at? But then Arthur’s voice is rolling down the hall, his posh, clipped, infuriating voice, and he’s saying, “Merlin? Merlin, are you here?” and he sounds scared in his posh, clipped, infuriating way, so Merlin sticks a hand up over the top of the tub and waits for Arthur to notice.

It’s worse than he thought it would be.

“What the fuck,” says Arthur, looking down at him. Arthur’s hair is rumpled and his cheeks are flushed from the cold and he looks like he walked out of a Rolex ad, or a cologne ad, one of those fancy colognes, the ones Merlin can’t think of right now because he can’t think of anything but Arthur’s face.

“Do you want to tell me what you’re doing here?” says Arthur, and Merlin grins and sits up and says, “Don’t you sleep in _your_ tub?”

“Did you lose your brains as well as your mobile,” Arthur asks.

“I didn’t lose it.”

“You didn’t pick up.”

“It’s in the other room,” says Merlin. “You can pick it up if you want.”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, as though he’s talking to a very slow child, “I am no longer calling your mobile because I am in your bathroom. With you.”

“With me?” says Merlin. “Wow. Really?”

“Fuck you,” says Arthur, and turns the tap back on because he can, and the water is freezing, and Merlin doesn’t mean to but he screams in shock, and Arthur yanks it off again. “Are you done being a girl?”

“How can I be done being a girl,” says Merlin, “when I never was one.”

“Come on,” says Arthur, and drags Merlin out of the tub. Merlin goes limp and lets Arthur pull his dead weight down the hallway, into his bedroom, into his bed. He wonders if Arthur will sleep with him, but Arthur opens Merlin’s set of drawers and sifts through the chaos to find some pants and a something that could pass as a t-shirt. He holds up a red one that reads _slut_ and says, with a straight face, “This doesn’t strike me as your style.”

“Oh, God,” says Merlin, pulling a pillow over his head and breathing in the stale air that has just left his lungs, that is comforting in its familiarity. “It was a joke. From Morgana. After I lost my virginity. At twenty-two. So.”

“I didn’t know you were that old,” says Arthur, and for some reason he isn’t making fun. Merlin would be able to tell, even through the pillow. “That’s only two years of debauchery.”

“Oh,” says Merlin. “I suppose.”

“You have to stop going to these parties,” says Arthur, and Merlin wants to stick screws in his ears. “I don’t know if they’re exhausting you, but they’re exhausting me. How much did you drink last night?”

“So much,” says Merlin. “And then I left and sucked Cen off behind the dumpsters and—”

“Ex _cuse_ me?” says Arthur. “You sucked off _Cenred_? Behind the dumpsters?”

“It’s not a big deal,” says Merlin.

Arthur pries the pillow from his hands. Merlin can’t read the expression on his face. It might be disgust. It might be pity. He can’t tell. “Merlin,” says Arthur. He falters. He tries again. “Merlin.”

“What?” Merlin says peevishly. He’s under his covers and cozy and warm and ready to sleep, and now he knows that Arthur will want to have A Conversation. The Conversation about how Merlin is not supposed to do this anymore. How he’s supposed to Take Agency and Say No, and Merlin always asks about the times he did say no, what about those times? And Arthur always says, Okay, but that doesn’t mean you have to sleep with every guy who asks.

It’s a thing.

“Fuck off,” Merlin says tiredly, turning to his side. “Why are you even here.”

The bed dips when Arthur sits on it. Merlin can smell his cologne. It’s musky. If Arthur asks, he won’t say no.

But Arthur doesn’t ask. He lies on top of the covers, and Merlin lies below, and they both stare into space, thinking their own thoughts, in their own heads.


End file.
